Segregation and Marginalization in Puebla, Mexico
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University of Mississippi eGrove Honors College (Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors Theses Honors College) 2019 The Haves and the Have Nots: Segregation and Marginalization in Puebla, Mexico Jarvis Benson University of Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis Part of the International and Area Studies Commons Recommended Citation Benson, Jarvis, "The Haves and the Have Nots: Segregation and Marginalization in Puebla, Mexico" (2019). Honors Theses. 1221. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/1221 This Undergraduate Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Honors College (Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College) at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE HAVES AND THE HAVE NOTS: SEGREGATION AND MARGINALIZATION IN PUEBLA, MEXICO © 2019 By Jarvis Benson A thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for completion Of the Bachelor of Arts degree in International Studies Croft Institute for International Studies Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College The University of Mississippi University, Mississippi May 2019 Approved: ___________________________________ Advisor: Dr. Marcos Mendoza ___________________________________ Reader: Dr. Oliver Dinius ___________________________________ Reader: Dr. James Thomas Acknowledgements I would like to thank my friends and my family for providing constant support and encouragement during the process of researching and writing this paper. Additionally, I am incredibly thankful to the faculty of the Croft Institute for International Studies, Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College, and the department of Sociology for the thoughtful and engaging comments and conversations that helped facilitate my writing. Finally, I would like to thank my advisor, Marcos Mendoza, for constant constructive feedback and support throughout this process. 1 Abstract Beginning in the early 1990s, the city of Puebla, Mexico pursued an urbanization strategy based on converting the historic center into a hub for international tourism devoted to marketing colonial architecture and developing another section of the city, Angelópolis, as an affluent space for commerce and elite dwelling. This strategy produced a crowding out effect that relegated the lower and working classes to the peripheries of the city. There are currently high levels of marginalization in Puebla that negatively impact overall citizen well-being, with pockets of precarious populations living in zones with difficult social conditions. Though based on a small sample of interview subjects, Pueblans highlighted awareness of multidimensional inequalities in the city related to income, class, health, security, and education. Citizens reflect socio-spatial consciousness that highlights—in variable ways—different understandings of marginality and segregation in the city. 2 Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction…………………………………………………..………………………. 5 Chapter 2: Literature Review……………………………………………...……………………. 10 Chapter 3: An Analysis of Policy and Legislation…………………………………………..….. 21 Chapter 4: City Prosperity Index Puebla City………………………………………………...… 34 Chapter 5: The Acknowledgement of Inequality…………………………...…………………... 43 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 55 Bibliography……………...…………………………………………………………………….. 57 3 Images, Tables, and Figures Table 3.1: Puebla Laws and Policies……………………………………………………………. 22 Table 4.1: Overall equity and social inclusion………………………………………………….. 37 Table 4.2: Overall productivity…………………………………………………………………. 39 Table 4.3: Overall quality of life………………………………………………………………... 40 Table 5.1: An overview of Interview Subjects………………………………………………….. 44 Image 3.1: Map of central Puebla, showing the Zone of Historic Monuments……………….... 23 Image 3.2: Street in Puebla Center…………………………………………………………….. 26 Image 3.3: Plaza de los sapos…………………………………………………………………... 28 Image 3.4: Puebla Convention Center………………………………………………………….. 30 Image 5.1: Degree of Marginalization by basic geostatistical area…………………………….. 46 Figure 4.1: ONU-Habitat City Prosperity Index Scale…………………………………………. 36 4 Chapter 1: Introduction Urbanization has come to be regarded as one of the most pressing social problems in developing countries. Projections by the United Nations World Urbanization Prospects study show that urbanization, combined with overall population growth, could add another 2.5 billion people to urban areas by 2050. The study notes that the developing regions experiencing this rapid urban growth will face challenges in “meeting the needs of their growing urban populations, including for housing, infrastructure, transportation, energy and employment, as well as for basic services such as education and health care” (United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects, 2014). The city of Puebla, Mexico, currently faces these challenges. Puebla, the fourth largest city in the country, has a population of nearly 1.5 million (INEGI, 2015). In Puebla, there are rapidly urbanizing areas with polished shopping malls, a gleaming ferris wheel, and posh sections on par with affluent neighborhoods in New York City. These new developments were all introduced to the city within the past two decades. The recent introduction of German car companies, such as Volkswagen and Audi, has stirred economic interest in Puebla (Mexico Now, 2018). At face value, the city seems to be an exemplary symbol of how Mexico has used international business and heavy industrialization to modernize cities. There have been, however, social consequences to quick modernization. The city of Puebla is characterized by a stark pattern of segregation. The social and economic barriers between respective income levels are physically present within the city’s limits. The problem of segregation in the city is aggravated by the income inequality that persists within the state. According to the annual report on the situation of poverty and social risk, approximately two-thirds of the state’s population live below the poverty line (CONEVAL, 2012). 5 Due to this inequality gap, Puebla has become starkly segregated, with the impoverished forced to the fringes of the city (Schteingart, 2013). This study concentrates on not only the societal effects of this income segregation (specifically that affecting the urban poor), but also the way in which government policies at the local, state, and national level have helped generate the stark segregation seen today. It is critically important to assess the societal effects that income-based segregation has on the city—whether where you live in the city is a crucial determinant of overall welfare, including outcomes associated with health, education, employment, and personal security. It is equally important to recognize that many social problems that affect the large percentage of Puebla residents potentially derives from laws and public policies. Research question Many studies have confirmed patterns of socioeconomic division and spatial segregation in over 100 cities across Latin America (Telles 1995, Hoffman 2003, Amarante 2008). These patterns have shown that low-income and “informally employed households” tend to live in the areas outside of the city center, while those of high-income and formally employed households are concentrated in the center (Monkkonen 2010). In terms of the situation in urban Mexico, in the past few decades a number of studies have been conducted on the sociocultural dimensions of urban industrialization. In a 2013 study, Bayon argues urban inequality undermines social cohesion and the experience of citizenship in the capital (Bayón 2013). Most studies have focused on Mexico City (Aguilar 2013). Segregation in Puebla, however, has not gone unnoticed. Various state-based news outlets have published articles on the social effects of the 6 displacement and segregation of the poor in the city (Páez 2013, Llorame 2017). Nevertheless, less academic attention has been focused on Puebla. Focusing on the city of Puebla, this research paper asks: what are the legal contexts and social consequences of spatial segregation? In this thesis, I break this main question into three major sub-questions. First, how have municipal development initiatives become factors in the segregation of the city? Second, what are the impacts of segregation and marginalization on overall citizen well-being in the city? Third, what are the perceptions of segregation by residents of Puebla? This research paper addresses Puebla but is pertinent to the developing international landscape. In 2012, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs argued in a report that social cohesion is the “glue that holds a society together”, and is built by the coming together of three different values: social inclusion, social capital and social mobility (UN 2012). With accelerating development in many parts of the world, it is important to protect societies against the “haves-and-have nots” phenomena: social and economic segregation. Argument The initial chapter of this research focuses on how governmental policies have affected the spatial segregation and marginalization of the poor in Puebla. I argue that the urbanization strategies based on increasing international tourism produced a crowding out effect that relegated lower and working classes to the peripheries of the city. In the latter half